Mog assisted recovery of a flipped Pinzgauer - November, 2000

Occasionally we get a chance to really put our Unimogs to good use. A couple of weekends ago a local Pinzgauer owner was traversing a challenging trail west of Boulder, CO, and got onto a side slope which his 710M Pinzgauer could not handle. He rolled down a steep bank onto the upper right side with his wheels pointing up the hill. With no one around to help, he hiked out, found a group of Jeepers, but they didn't have the ability to help.

An emergency email went out from the RMM Pinzgauer group asking for help with the recovery effort the next morning. Two other Pinzgauer owners and I ('57 404 winch equipped flatbed mog) scheduled to meet at the trailhead and bring the Pinzy out if possible. We only had to drive about half a mile to reach the Pinzy.

The damage from the tip over was not too severe. There was some broken glass on the passenger door, and a cracked windshield. Worst thing was that the batteries had dumped acid that ran into the cab making quite a mess.

We set up a double block rigging with single line from the mog to a snatch block above the Pinzy, cable then went down to the Pinzy, through another block, and back uphill to another set of trees. Using straps, the load was spread onto multiple trees, just in case. We also used a load spreading attachment to the undercarriage of the Pinzy. There's really no good point to hook to the upper side (outer edge) of a Pinzgauer, only to the central tube frame. The load was spread between a body mount pedestal and the two mounts for the shock absorbers on the front and rear.

The mog's winch (12,500 lb Pierce) set the Pinzy back on it's feet easily. After it was vertical again we used a cable run to the front, to another Pinzgauer, to pull the Pinzy forward back up onto the road.

I discovered that my Pierce winch didn't have the drum end of the cable clamped very well (something other Pierce owners might want to check). The cable pulled out as I removed all the layers by hand, to rewind under tension before starting the real pull. The cable clamping setscrew was bottomed out in it's hole (threads not tapped deep enough) so we had to improvise to secure the cable. I had done hard pulls several times before but hadn't removed all the cable before.

The Pinzy's engine had not hydro'ed on oil even though it set all night sort of upside down. After putting water in the two batteries, repairing a broken battery connection, and fixing a busted throttle linkage, it started ok with little smoke. John drove it out of the mountains, and home, with no trouble.

Written December 14th, 2000
Bob Ragain
Littleton, CO